The further and continuing adventures of the girl who sat in the back of your homeroom, reading and daydreaming.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Really, It's A Backwards Reaction

So, the President chimes in on the George Zimmerman case and, ignoring the one donkey-in-the-room question of why he does so, Mr. Obama actually makes a couple of valid points, one intentionally:

"...[T]he African- American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away..." True, as far as it goes; the wider truth is that everyone's viewpoint is based on past experience, on family stories, on our shared and individual narratives. That's where demagogues and inspirational leaders (or do I repeat myself?) find the strings to work our emotions and ignoring it is foolish. --But it's one thing to take past history (your own and other people's) into account and a different and very sad thing to be ruled by it.

And his unintentional point? That most people don't evaluate risk well, fretting over small chances and missing huge threats:

"There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator"
Let me break it down for you, possible threat by threat:
Pedestrians: Statistically, unlikely to harm or rob you.
Men: Statistically, unlikely to harm or rob you.
African-Amaricans: Statistically, unlikely to harm or rob you.
U. S. Senators: Start the draft, start wars, create new regulations and raise taxes. And it's always the intent of a majority of them -- often, a supermajority. When you see a Senator, lock your damn door!

Senators are dangerous. But I suppose that's another lesson people will never learn.

2 comments:

"There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator"

So, when you became a Senator did you just all of a sudden become less scary?Get a new cloud bubble saying you were a Senator?OR just stop having to walk and got yourself a driver?

"I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions."